It is important that public-safety responders have adequate communication services (e.g., telephony, push-to-talk service, data services, and the like) when responding to an incident. However, the reality of the dynamic and mobile nature of the profession is that, in many instances, incidents occur outside of the range or coverage of the established radio access networks (RANs), or alternatively, the RAN does not have the capacity to handle all services required at an incident. To facilitate communication needs of responders, incident area networks (IANs) are often deployed using mobile base stations.
IANs are self-forming, temporary network infrastructures brought to the scene of an incident to support personal and local communications among different public safety end-users. Mobile devices on scene will associate with the IAN and receive services through the IAN. The IAN will have a unique system identification (SSID) known to the communication devices on scene.
As described above, IANs are self-forming networks that revolutionize the way Homeland Security, Law Enforcement, and Emergency Responders establish field command and control by providing broadband data, video and voice communications without the need for fixed infrastructure. Public-safety personnel are be able to instantly set up mobile broadband incident area networks wherever they are required, creating a secure, mission-critical network at single and multi-agency incidents both large and small.
Part of the services provided by an IAN is making available necessary applications and data to users for download. Relevant data and applications will be stored in a central repository within the IAN. The repository is sometimes referred to as an Application Store (or an App Store). For example, an App Store within an IAN may contain content such as a map of a building where an incident is occurring. The map may be downloaded by devices associated with the IAN. Applications may also be provided by the IAN. Thus, the IAN can serve as an An app store (or app marketplace) acting as a digital distribution platform for computer software (apps) and data, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions.
In a large incident scene many autonomous IANs may be brought on scene. Each IAN will bring it its own Apps store. These IAN app stores may store different content, applications, and application versions. For example, a mapping application for a first IAN may comprise version 2 of the application, and the same mapping application from a second IAN may comprise an updated version 3 of the application. Similarly, the second IAN may comprise a map of a building on scene, while the first IAN may not have the map. It will very useful if there were a method and apparatus for providing content (applications and data) to devices from multiple application stores residing within multiple IANs so that any device may obtain a best version of an application and all available content residing on any app store from the multiple IANs.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and/or relative positioning of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various embodiments of the present invention. Also, common but well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment are often not depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments of the present invention. It will further be appreciated that certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence while those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required.